Tuesday, April 26, 2011

Easy Carrot Pickles

Wow! We're finally harvesting the carrots that we planted last October (or was it November?). Success! They are not as big as I would have hoped, but they're a respectable enough size. Since we are getting loads of carrots from our CSA, one of the gals that comes to hang out with me on the farm once a week, Vanessa, suggested pickling them.

We found this recipe from David Lebovitz, a former San Francisco chef cum food writer now living in Paris full time. I've gotten all of my best pickle recipes from him. He's the bomb. I love him. Seriously. And for all you travelers out there, check out his tips for dining out in France, a must read for anyone not wanting to piss off a French waiter, which I have done on more than one occasion and don't recommend.

Vanessa and I whipped up two batches, one seasoned with dill seeds and the other fennel seeds. I like them both equally. The husband told me that these were hands down the yummiest thing I had preserved so far. Thanks hubby. They took us a total of 15 minutes to prepare. Gotta love that kind of preserving: low input, big reward.

Vanessa gleefully chopping the carrots. That might be a little too much glee with that knife.

Hello. Thanks for the recipe. I just listened to your podcast interview on goats on the Backyard Ecosystem site. Very helpful! I am trying to plan the layout of my own urban farm. We are starting with chickens but goats are in the plans maybe in a year. It would be such a HUGE help if you could share more about your animal area. Since I am trying to plan where the coop should go and such. If you have time could you explain your own farm layout? Or have you in another post? Thanks so much for sharing your farm journey online!

Since I've been referenced with a menacing knife-wielding shot, I figure now is a good time for some input on my experience as an intern at Itty Bitty.

I've been working at the farm once a week since February, when I acted on a long-aching desire to have some goats and chickens in my life. I wanted to brighten my existence through learning new things with the help of animals, plants, and a real person. Even if we can learn almost anything online nowadays, sensations don't come easily through a screen. I wanted to sweat more, to be outside, to feel warm goat milk running over my wrist.

And I got it!

On a practical level, this once a week arrangement means I get to milk Lucy, learn about hers and the chickens' care, delve into questions like, "why are these beets so thin?", find out where to get free eucalyptus mulch. Lots more too. This motivates days of my own work, at my house. Because I rent, I can't develop my dirt hillside into a goat farm, yet. (I have 60 kale plants instead.) But, one day at IttyBitty inspires stronger focus, experimentation and confidence in my own home/garden endeavors. I often repeat what I learn at IttyBitty at home and I get to feel that I am part of a larger community, which has made such a difference in how I feel when I am working on a project, and the probability that I will actually finish it.

The other point I want to mention is that I arrived at the farm seeking moments too gorgeous or stupid or disgusting or goofy to forget. If I can get one of these every month, then I will have added years to my life in terms of how I retrospectively view it.

So last week, I was chasing Ethel, the puffy white goat, around her pen with a bottle of tea tree oil. The idea was to pour drops of it onto her spine to kill her mites. She did not like the smell and had me running. I chased her up the stairs to her platform, which is several feet high. After hesitating a moment, she jumped off and literally flew down to her eucalyptus mulch floor, with her pink tongue out, maaaaing. She landed fine, and repeated this several times, with a kind of awkward grace that stuck with me like a song. It really still makes me laugh to think of her round puffy form in flight. I've ended two letters to Oregon with this image and sketched a drawing of her over one of the envelopes.

Maybe it tapped into the emotional space carved by imagistic nursery rhymes? In any case, it was that rare transgression that is in all ways healthy.